Quiet. SHHHHH…

I know I have been extremely quiet on the blogging side of things since the New Year, but that isn’t because I haven’t been writing. I have been working on a few projects and trying to enter one competition or submission a month. Tonight I chose my February target which is a magazine submission, for January it was a competition. There is no rhyme or reason to my choices, just what I think is the best opportunity of the month.

My other writing involves my assignments for university, my short stories and my novel which I am planning to have edited by the end of next month. Why the deadline for the novel? In a cunning plan to get our novels finished, edited and ready for submission, The Water Treaders (my writing group) is doing a novel swap at the end of February.

I admit I’m slightly nervous about this as no one has read my entire novel manuscript, but I’m also excited because it gives me a deadline for editing. Light at the end of the tunnel.

Merry Christmas

Looking back on my blogs, I can see it has been over six weeks since my last entry. What have I been doing that I didn’t take time out to blog? Well, at least two of those weekends I wasn’t in Queensland and as I don’t have a laptop (yet), I find it means having to work in longhand on paper. So I stick to editing or dreaming up new ideas when I’m away.

I must admit that I prefer dreaming up new ideas to editing. I love the excitement of not knowing what is going to end up on the page. Editing seems like hard work to me, I know that it can be as creative as the original writing and the end product makes it worthwhile, but it just doesn’t give me the same buzz.

The rest of the time I have been busy with finishing a Creative Writing unit and Christmas shopping. And this is where I wish you all a Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year before heading off for the night.

Merry Christmas.

Re-writing the Novel.

I really enjoyed having lunch with The Water Treaders today. The motivation and support have helped inspire me to finish re-writing my novel. I even feel excited about the prospect of editing the manuscript.

I want to have the whole manuscript re-worked in two months – which isn’t much time considering that I work full time and study part time. Some writers can do this, but I think I fall into the category of writers that need sleep to function.

I’m looking at working on one thousand words a day, if I skip a day I will need to catch up. This is a self-imposed schedule that will have to be flexible to fit in with my study assessments. The next two weekends are going to be a write off as I’ll be trying to finish off my uni assessment and keep my social commitments.

Critiquing

I often talk about critiquing stories and I forget that not everybody has the full understanding of what I mean by this. Critiquing stories is not as simple as saying you like or dislike something. For me, it is about trying to help the story creator reach the full potential for that story.

You have to understand that when someone hands over their story to you, they are handing over a piece of writing that they have spent hours on. Indeed some writers liken their manuscript to a baby; they have spent hours nourishing it with attention; often into the late hours of the night or early hours in the morning. It’s the first thing they think of when they wake up, the last when they go to sleep, sometimes the characters even infiltrate their dreams. For this reason you should try to be as diplomatic as possible, nobody likes to be told bad things about their baby.

If you don’t like something you have the right to say so but follow it up with a suggestion about how the writer could fix the issue. If it is the entire story you don’t like and this is because the genre is not something you like to read, tell the writer that this genre is not to your liking. The story may not be to your taste, but for other people who like that particular genre it may be just right. This gives the writer the option of finding others who like that genre to also critique their work.

It’s also a good idea to say which bits you enjoyed and why you enjoyed them. This helps the writer know which bits are working and whether or not to keep them in their final draft. Try to find some good things to say about the story, as only hearing the bad points may discourage the writer and it can damage their confidence in writing.

My Short Story Process

I have decided to write about my process for creating a short story. Not every writer has the same process, but most would have a variation of this creative process.

I start out with an idea that interests me. No point choosing something boring, I would either do something else or fall asleep. Ideas can come from many places and the idea for my most recent story came from a word pool exercise.

Once I have my idea, I write my first draft. My only goal at this stage is to get as much of the idea down on paper that I can without stopping to think about spelling, grammar, or anything else. The only must is a beginning, middle and end.

Next is my planning stage, this is where I write up motivation outlines for each character, character profiles and a plot outline.

I write the second draft keeping the outlines and profiles close to hand, in case there are any details I need to check. Then I hide it away for a couple of weeks. Sometimes it is hard to take that step back I need to edit my work, leaving it for a couple of weeks gives me that distance I need.

When I finally dig the story out of its hiding place I read it all the way through without stopping. Afterwards I make notes on a blank piece of paper of things that I believe need to be fixed. Then I re-read the story making notes on the manuscript as I go. The third draft is all about editing with these notes. I read the third draft and make sure it is as good as I can make it before submitting to a critiquing group. If the group suggests any changes that I agree with I will do a final draft that includes these changes.

Then and only then is it ready to send out.

Story Mode

I spent most of yesterday working on my short story Wish Consequence, I did character profiles, editing and a plot outline to make sure that my story had stayed on track. I find it amusing that I do a basic plot outline after I have written the story, but I find if I know what is going to happen in the short story beforehand that I get bored and don’t end up writing it.

Today however isn’t going to plan. It is already one o’clock in the afternoon and this is the first writing I have done all day. I still plan to work on a different short story to submit to Vision Writers for the critiquing meeting next week. The problem is my brain is not really in story mode today.

My plan is to have lunch, change the music I am currently listening to and read the story I need to work on. A break may be just the thing I need to put the brain into story mode.

Word Pools

I finished the second draft of my workshop piece this week but in writing the word pool exercise some interesting things happened.

A word pool is basically word association. You pick a few words you like the look of (you can even pick them out of the dictionary) and then you just bounce them around on paper. You can combine a couple of words to make phrases and then start free associating from these phrases as well. In the end you should have a page full of free writing that doesn’t make any sense. Look at what you have on the page; is there anything that catches your imagination, makes you think of possible ideas? If there isn’t keep looking, something will jump out eventually. Or you can keep writing until that illusive idea comes along.

This word pool exercise lured my mind down the path of creativity and I discovered two new story ideas. One of which I am currently turning into a short story and features a minor character from my novel.

Dream or Idea

I woke up this morning after a particularly vivid dream. I love dreams like this as they are great material for story ideas. The dream itself was probably what most people would call a nightmare. But for me nightmares are something you wake up from and turn on all the lights because you don’t want to go back to sleep. Just in case you dream the same thing. The reason I got up was because I wanted to write it down before I went back to sleep and the dream was forgotten.

            The idea is a horror premise with no supernatural theme and I can’t see myself using it for at least the next few months. But I could always be wrong or it could help spark another idea that I want to turn into a story straight away. Either way I am busy enough with writing projects that I have to put this idea on the backburner to let it simmer.

Idea to Story

I’ve had quite a few people ask where and how I find my ideas. For me it’s not finding the ideas so much as keeping them until they find the right piece of writing to belong to.

            One of my short stories that I finished the first draft on just this year was from an idea that I had very early on in my writing. The original idea was just a few paragraphs long and focused on the main characteristics of the lead character who happened to be a vampire.

            So how did the idea change into a story? I was going through my idea folder (where I put all my unfinished story ideas) searching for inspiration and found those few paragraphs. The idea started to grow and change as it developed itself in my mind. Putting it down on paper and extending the idea into a story was helped by having a deadline to work towards.

            Even though this story has passed the first draft stage I am still trying to decide which character’s point of view it should be in.

Idea Folder

I did have another blog planned for tonight but I think this one should come first.

It is more of an explanation of what my idea folder is. Okay, so I’ll tell the hard truth; my idea folder has spilled out to a couple of idea folders and likely weighs more than a brick. It is a series of manila folders that hold loose sheets of paper with ideas written on them. Some of the ideas are only a sentence long and other run into pages of material.

Some writers keep all of these on their computer in an electronic version of the idea folder, personally I find rummaging through the ideas and reading them all kick-starts my imagination. I don’t get the same feeling of excitement from going through my files on the computer.

What else can you shove into the folder to get your imagination working for you? Anything you want. Maps, drawings, dreams, poems, pictures, anything that makes you think. Of course you don’t need to stick to the format of a folder; this is about what works best for you as a writer.